Tournament
TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW By Bruce Berlet
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niversity of Connecticut athletics, especially the men’s and women’s basketball teams, garner the most attention in the state on the sporting front, but the biggest event is undeniably the Travelers Championship. From the humbling beginnings of a Greater Hartford Jaycees fundraiser in 1952 as the Insurance City Open at Wethersfield Country Club, the tournament has grown into one of the best-attended events in the world that attracts solid player fields despite being the week after the U.S. Open. And, most importantly, it has raised more than $45.5 million for hundreds of local charities, including $22.5 million since the insurance magnet became title sponsor in 2007, capped by a record $2.2 million last year. But while player recruitment is among the most vital lifelines for the success on the PGA Tour, the Travelers Championship is plenty fortunate to have a unique figure to help the cause. Andy Bessette, the executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers, is the only PGA Tour title sponsor leader to travel to tournaments and walk the practice range trying to help land the best players and ask how things can be improved. “Yes, that’s true,” Bessette said with a wry smile, “but I wish I had some company.” Bessette’s “company” several times a year is
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tournament director Nathan Grube, who is more than delighted to have a major support system. “It is an absolute team effort between tournament and title sponsor regarding player relationships that we have established over the last 16-plus years,” Grube said. “But we simply would
Golfing Magazine • New England Edition
not have the players we have each year without Andy.” Bessette and Grube make trips that epitomize the Travelers exec’s guiding business principle. “Every year our motto, and I’ve always had this motto throughout my whole life, is that the status quo is unacceptable,” Bessette said. “You have to always get better. If you’re not better tomorrow than you are today than you’re going backwards.” The 67-year-old Bessette specializes in his credo while getting to know more and more players every year, starting in 2006, when he and Grube began meeting and building relationships with players, their families, caddies, media members and many others. Travelers, which has been a sponsor on some level since the inception of the tournament, became title sponsor after Buick ended its four-year association with the event. “We talked to everybody,” Bessette said. “We asked (Fairfield native) J.J. Henry, who was the defending champion, and Bubba Watson, ‘What’s important to you guys? We want to have the best tournament on the PGA Tour.’ They were shocked we even asked the question. We asked (then-ESPN personality) Mike Tirico, ‘What do we have to do?’ And we continue to do that every year. A couple years ago I saw Ted Scott, who was Bubba’s caddie at the time, and I asked him, ‘What can we do to keep making this tournament better?’ He said, ‘Are you kidding me?
